Social conflicts and historical processes can only be understood in the context of social conditions. "The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles," states the Communist Party Manifesto – a notion that fundamentally influences the work of Thomas Kilpper. At Provinz, the artist presents a special selection of recent woodcuts under the title "Being Determines Consciousness, Part 2."

On display are works from the portrait series "Woodcut Maelstrom," which was recently on view at the Kunsthalle Bremen and brings contemporary critics into dialogue with the work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, among others. Ghosts, nocturnal landscapes, tree silhouettes, medicinal plants, planets, and pill blisters, appearing behind and in front of matte or luminous, constructivist color compositions, paint a mood that oscillates between melancholy and optimism.

By choosing woodcuts, Kilpper stands in a long tradition of artists who use this technique as an accessible, reproducible, and affordable form of expression for their social critique – from depictions critical of the Pope around 1500 to the well-known works of Käthe Kollwitz and others.